Florida congressional candidate David M. Rivera warned national Republicans that an old domestic violence complaint involving someone with a similar name — but that he says was not him — could become an issue in his bid to keep Florida’s 25th District in GOP hands.

Now the 1994 incident has resurfaced amid reports that Rivera was involved in a 2002 traffic accident with a truck that was carrying an opponent’s campaign mailers.

According to the 2002 police report, the car Rivera was driving hit a truck on Miami’s Palmetto Expressway and forced it to the shoulder. The truck was carrying thousands of campaign fliers linking Rivera to a 1994 domestic violence complaint filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court seeking a restraining order against an individual named David M. Rivera after “repeated” incidents.

Rivera, a state representative, responded to the charges in a statement Friday. “When I ran for the Florida state House in 2002, a last-minute campaign mailer was sent falsely accusing me of domestic violence. The mailer cited a 1994 case involving another individual also named David Rivera,” he said.

That’s what Rivera told National Republican Congressional Committee members when he met with them in preparation for his congressional bid. A Republican aide said it is standard practice to ask candidates whether there is anything that “Democrats can use against” them, and that Rivera mentioned the domestic violence issue.

A Florida Republican told POLITICO, however, that others in Florida made the committee aware of the domestic violence allegations, and that Rivera told the NRCC it was a case of mistaken identity.

According to the Miami Herald, the woman who filed the complaint maintains that it was not made against the politician David M. Rivera. No charges were ever filed, the newspaper reported. But The Herald also quotes a friend of the woman's brother as saying the candidate and the woman once attended a party together about 10 years ago; Rivera and the woman deny this also.

“Let me be clear: The 1994 case had absolutely nothing to do with me. I am not the David Rivera in that case and to suggest otherwise is a blatant and shameful lie,” Rivera said again in his Friday statement.

Still, national Democrats are seizing on the allegations and trying to link prominent national Republicans to Rivera. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee circulated a statement pointing to fundraisers that House Minority Leader John Boehner and Republican Whip Eric Cantor did for Rivera, and highlighting a clip of NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions speaking highly of him on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Rivera is the frontrunner in the race for the GOP nod to run for the seat being vacated by Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who is switching districts so he can run for his retiring brother’s 21st District seat. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart announced his plans to retire earlier this year.

Joe Garcia, a former Democratic Party chairman in Miami-Dade County, will likely be the Democratic nominee.